Bottom Line
The Race Face SIXC carbon cranks are pretty darn sweet, they are light, stiff and offer good shifting. I liked the integrated bashguard, the choice of double or triple chainrings, and the Pedal End Boots. The SIXC cranks are nicely engineered and manufactured, and the overbuild and chainring combination’s really fit in with the All Mountain paradigm. This is an amazing lightweight crankset, that is all carbon (outside of the CrMo spindle and pedal inserts), has incredible power transition to the wheels, looks great and has very cool bash guards for the crank arm ends. They are one of the stiffest, and snappiest cranks I have ever used. Crackalicious!

Brian has been part of the Mtbr team since 2007, where he has become an integral member of the review and test staff, specializing in technical articles. He likes to push the limits in all the sports he obsesses in, whether it's mountain biking, whitewater kayaking, extreme skiing, or sport climbing. He takes those same strengths and a good dose of insanity to his reviewing and writing on mountain biking products, creating technical, in-depth and hyperbolic articles. Whenever he's not on the bike, he might be found watching MotoGP racing, otherwise look for him out on extremely technical singletrack.

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Did not see the weight of the BB was included, so 90 grams for triple the price. “Progress” like this is why some dudes still run Square taper, still at least they are from this continent but still heavier and more expensive than Cannondale’s BB30 crank. Hopefully race face figured out durable bearings.

Our Deus crank is the same weight and strength as XT. The SIXC crank is 100 grams lighter and 35% stronger in testing than our Deus crank (and hence XT). No one can currently match the strength to weight ratio of this crank. Deus and XT are XC/Trail cranks. The SIXC is AM to light freeride (6 inch bikes/6 foot drops).

Dave:
I have used the Next cranks for almost 1.5 years, and never had the spider crack issue, and the bottom bracket has lasted as long (or longer) than my Shimano versions. I had a Shimano M-960 XTR that had pinch bolt and crank arm fixing bolt issues (broke the latter twice). The SIXC are ultra beefy in the spider section, they are not some weight weenie crank (though they are light), they are a AM crank.

XT is a nice crank, but durablility is in question. I pulled the pedal threads out of 2 sets before going to Deus. The Deus have been problem free for a year now (I was told Deus uses a stronger aluminum for their arms). Every company can have quality issues from time to time. XT is hardly the end all be all. I found them weak….
A fried of mine also has the Next cranks and thay have been trouble free for well over a year (and he’s got them on his AM bike). Very strong and lighter than XTR..Dismissing a brand because of one or two bad reviews is crazy…There are plenty of bad Shimano reviews out there as well…

the more accurate comparison would be crank and bb weight without chainrings. as you can see, they weighed with double and bash, and a bash ring weighs a lot more than a 42/44 tooth chainring, so its not comparable with a triple set up. and at the end of the day, its an all mountain crank compared to an xc race crank. yes it is expensive, but when you are already spending $3-4000 on a bike it really isnt that much more

Rich,
We shot a note off to Wendy Tewnion at Race face and she responded thusly:

If they are speaking about the new Cinch Sixc cranks (with the 30mm spindle) then there are a couple different things that could happen. If they have a 30m Press Fit 30 Chris King bb then that could be used with the Cinch spindle but would require getting a spacer kit from RF ( Part # F10010). If they have a standard threaded 24mm Chris King BB then it would only work if they had the previous SIXC crank (with the 24mm diameter spindle) or if they have the Sixc Cinch crank, they would need to use a Cinch BB –http://raceface.com/components/bottom-brackets/cinch-bb/ .